Daily Devotional
Word of the Day
Always Under Lordship
Pastor Scott
Monday, May 03, 2004
Listen to this teaching | Related Teaching | Bible Teaching | 
Print
"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?"
(Romans 8:16)
Our identification is with Jesus; we've been crucified with Him. If we've been crucified with Him and buried with Him, we'll be raised with Him, the Scripture says. The resurrection that Romans 6 talks about is not just the final resurrection, but it's a resurrection in Christ that frees us from the power and dominion of sin. We've been raised with Jesus, and therefore sin no longer has dominion over us. As a new creature we live free from sin. "For he that is dead [to self] is freed from sin." Romans 6, 7, and 8 talk about sin, carnal mindedness, worldliness, and the flesh. All of those things are aspects of independence or separation from God, separated from His lordship.
Some believe a lie, thinking they are independent individuals. The Bible makes it very clear that mankind has never been independent or free. From his creation man has always been under lordship: he is under either the lordship of a loving heavenly Father or the lordship of the prince of darkness. Man has never been free in the sense of independence from lordship.
When we realize that we will be slaves to one kingdom or another, we know the choices we make don't make us independent. Some of us want to be free from parental authority. Some of us want to be free from the law of God. What you're saying is you want to be under the power of Satan. If you're a young person living in your parents' home right now, and you want to be out from under their authority, you would rather have Satan telling you what to do. It's that simple. You're not an entity to yourself; you are never going to be independent. Every thought you think originates from the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of light. No human being has every had an original thought. All thoughts come from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or from the wisdom that's from above. Hopefully this will show you how simple it is to walk in the spirit, free from the power of sin. Many of these trivial decisions we make are not so trivial, because we're identifying with one kingdom or the other. These lusts, these demands, these rights that we say are our rights are of our father, the devil. It's very important to draw this distinction if we're ever going to walk free from the power of sin. Otherwise, we're going to think that some of the things we're doing are innocent or amoral. Every amoral choice that a man makes apart from the Spirit of God is immoral because it originates in hatred for God. The carnal mind is at enmity with God. The carnal mind cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. It may seem innocent or humane, but if our thoughts don't originate in God and are not for the glory of God, they are evil. They oppose God and glorify man. They are the author of humanism, or secularism, as we know it in our day.
Do you see how clear it is? You say, "It can't be that simple!" It is! Only philosophers have tried to make it more difficult. It is that simple. The Bible is full of examples being that simple. You love Me; you hate Me. You're for Me; you're against Me. You can't get fresh water and salt water. It is the simplest of all principles, yet probably the most misunderstood because we don't want to understand it that way.